You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz

Guess what time I went to sleep last night. 5 AM!!! Want to know why? Because I was reading this totally unputdownable thriller and could not possibly close my eyes until I found out how it all worked out. Good job I've got this week off work and didn't have anything much to do this morning because we'd better not mention what time I finally got out of bed today!

Our protagonist is Mike who, when was just four years old, was abandoned by his father at a playground. Mike has never known why, or if his parents are still alive, or even his own last name. As a result, Mike had something of a shady upbringing, and was a petty criminal in his youth, having grown up in a foster home. Fortunately, he was able to turn things around and has become a model citizen with a good career as an architect, a wife he loves, and a very sweet eight-year-old daughter.

All that changes when Mike and his family are accosted at an award ceremony by a couple of very dodgy villains. Mike gets no help from the police, who seem more interested in Mike himself, and when the duo start harassing the family in earnest it soon becomes clear that they will stop at nothing until Mike and those he loves are dead. Who are these people hell-bent on murder? Why do they want to kill Mike and his family? Does it have anything to do with what happened years ago when Mike was abandoned?

I'd never read a novel by Hurwitz before, but the reviews were so good I had to give this a try. I completely agree with them - for pure pageturning excitement this is one of the best thrillers I've ever read. It's a total nailbiter, and I was racking my brains the whole way through to try and work out why these men were after Mike. The denoument, when it finally comes, is quite clever and unexpected.

The author sets up his characters very well and eases you in gently for the first couple of chapters, letting you get to know their family dynamic and grow to care about them. Then, bam! Action, action, action! Poor Mike rushes around all over the place, trusting nobody but his best friend and a grizzled old PI, as he tries desperately to keep his daughter safe. Did I mention how sweet the daughter is? Far too cute to get chopped into tiny pieces by our two villains, and I just had to keep turning those pages to make sure that didn't happen.

You're Next is never going to win any literary prizes and it wasn't a perfect book, by any means. The villains were a mite OTT and my credulity was stretched a tad in places. There's quite a bit of gruesome violence in the book too, so don't choose this if you're of an especially nervous disposition. However, Hurwitz certainly knows how to make a book exciting and this is easily as thrilling as some of Dean Koontz's finest. Four stars.